Vomit always appears without warning. One minute everything is fine, and then with an abraca-bleh, we all magically appear in the bathtub. Once we’re clean, life goes back to normal with playing and running around as if nothing had happened. Kids are awesome that way.
On top of being avid gamers, Ghostbuster cosplayers, and binge-watchers of sci-fi television shows, my husband and I are also magicians. Ta-da! Wayne’s been practicing magic for a long time. I’ve only been involved for the past couple of years and, as a magician friend recently pointed out to me, I’ve become a wealth of knowledge in a short period of time. Neither of us performs magic professionally, yet, but we’re strongly considering creating an act for ourselves.
Alice goes with us to our monthly magician meetings. She was sworn in as an honorary member to The Society of American Magicians right after she was born. She’s now our tiniest magician. The Society of American Magicians is an organization dedicated to preserving magic as a performing art and to promoting harmony among magicians. If you’ve ever wanted to be a magician and learn the fascinating art of magic, S.A.M. is the organization you’ll want to join. I have met some of the most welcoming people in S.A.M. and Alice is fortunate enough to have gained a plethora of uncles and aunts who all adore her.
There is even a youth chapter. If you’re a parent with a kid (ages 7 through 17) who is just dying to learn how to saw the cat in half or levitate their younger brother, The Society of Young Magicians can help them learn the art of magic and performance.
Why am I sharing all of this? Because I didn’t sit back and enjoy the magic show. I was that kid who spent my time trying to work out how the trick was done. We didn’t have a magic shop near me. I didn’t even know that magic was something I could learn how to do. I imagined that you had to apprentice under a real magician. It happened like in a family-friendly 90s era made-for-TV movie: A lucky child stumbles upon a lonely old man, with no family of his own, who once-upon-a-time was one of the world’s greatest magicians, and this magician chooses that child to share all of his secrets with. We didn’t have a lonely old great magician living in my town, so I was SOL. I lamented that I would never be Penn or Teller. It didn’t matter how many tricks I learned from the back of my cereal boxes.
And then in my late 20s, I learned the truth. I could totally learn magic if I wanted to and my husband knew how because he WAS one of those lucky kids who stumbled upon a magic shop. It wasn’t too late. Maybe you’re an adult who has had this dream of learning about magic. Maybe you have a kid who has exhausted all of those plastic kits from local toy stores and still wants to learn more. You can. And you’re welcome.
*If you don’t want to know the magician’s secrets, I recommend that you do not join any of these organizations. It will ruin it for you and then you’ll never be able to enjoy magic again. And magic is fun to watch when you get pulled into the art of it. So unless you really, really, REALLY want to know, you’re better off not being a magician. You have been warned.